I had a bounty hunter shooting at the PCs from a gantry above them. One of the PCs used the Move power to destabilize the gantry and try to knock the bounty hunter off.

The PC succeeded, with a Triumph, so I ruled the bounty hunter started to fall toward the ground (below which was a flaming speeder which had previously exploded).

The twist is the bounty hunter has a jetpack, and I wanted to introduce his jetpack. But it wasn't the bounty hunter's turn yet.

There was still one PC's turn (in most cases, 2 or 3 minutes' worth of in-game 'time') before the bounty hunter got to act.

I didn't think the bounty hunter (a serious Nemesis) would just fall to the ground and lay there for a couple of minutes. He'd switch on his jetpack and at least start to fly to safety.

What would you do? Just let the bounty hunter switch on his jetpack as an incidental? Or have him hit the ground and wait until his turn to act?

It does describe combat as 'nearly simultaneous' with turns not really being completely linear and chronological. So I would think you'd be fine having him hit the jetpack and if there is any whining tell the players its an auto feature of the jetpack to kick on when it senses the wearer dropping.

It worked out well in our session because there was one player's turn before the bounty hunter got to act.

The PC said he wanted to try to catch the bounty hunter using an Athletics check. He also succeeded with a Triumph.

So I said he got to the bounty hunter and grabbed his foot, just as the bounty hunter kicked in his jetpack (on his turn) and flew to a nearby balcony, with the PC still hanging on!

It wouldn't have been quite as clean if there'd been 2 or 3 PC slots before the BH got to act.

Well, with an auto safety thing you could've just had him hover. Say it's not designed to do anything other than keep the wearer from dying. Sounds like it worked out anyway.

GM "You loosen the gantry and knock the hunter free, he goes plummeting toward the ground, bouncing off some loose girders as he falls."

Player: "I do whatever my character does during his turn!"

GM:"On the hunters turn: Before the hunter can land in the burning pile of speeder parts he activates his jetpack and proceeds to shoot all of you. You lose Star Wars."

Ok, maybe not exactly like that, but it's start.

As the pirate said, turns are somewhat simultaneous, so you could just say the BH was "falling", but hadn't landed yet.

you could have him activate it as he is falling but with a flip of a destiny point.

Or better yet, you could roll a Piloting (Planetary) or Coordination check as an out of turn incidental to see if he activate the jetpack and fly away. This still gives the NPC room for success and doesn't look so much like a GM cheating to the PCs.

In a situation like this, it's important to set a standard. A PC may decide after seeing this that having a jetpack is a good idea for the same reason, so you'll want to make sure that whatever you do, you're okay with a PC doing it too. unless the NPC had a secret talent unavailable to players

I would say that it makes sense for an important bad guy to not get one shot by fall damage like that.

Flip a dp to white, and have the bounty hunter make an out of turn incidental coordination check. If he makes it, he lit up his jet pack and is hovering.

That seems the most fair to me, as it spends a resource the pc can use, and doesn't really break down the flow of combat.

Flip a dp to white, and have the bounty hunter make an out of turn incidental coordination check. If he makes it, he lit up his jet pack and is hovering.

I really like the use of a Destiny Point to introduce the out-of-turn "save". As you say, spending the resource definitely helps the potential feeling of unfairness. I also like how it supports the near-simultaneous nature of the turns in a round by doing something to highlight it, not just say "Well turns are supposed to be all happening kind of at once" (I have a hard time keeping that in mind when I'm GMing sometimes, so I know it's not instinctive to my players).

Plus, it's nice to break out and use destiny points in a different way than just upgrading PC's checks. Feels like that mechanic is more alive when "Destiny" intervenes in deus ex machina ways for the NPCs too.

Another solution: with a Triumph, say that destabilizing the gantry made the bounty hunter about to fall, but he's still teetering as the next player decides on his action. Then the bounty hunter falls in his own initiative slot and can activate his jetpack.

That said, I like using a Destiny Point to make an out-of-turn Coordination check to hover. That's probably the most elegant solution.